Monthly Archives: September 2012

In light of my failure and my not really applying to very many firms in the first place, Dad wants me to do a law firm application every day until the GDL starts. Not to mince words, I don’t think that’s even possible; just doing one in a day is a very tall order (they are viciously demanding forms), and doing that day-in-day-out will make me hate myself and everything else with bitter wordless impotent fury. But! I do work best under pressure, and as Bernstein said – “to achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.”

Thank you very much to everyone who wished me luck. Enormously appreciated.

The assessment day went well (ish)! I wrote up a long blog posty blow-by-blow report on how the whole thing went, but I imagine the firm would rather I didn’t share the details of their interview process to the whole wide world – so if you want to see it and I’m reasonably confident you’re not going to post it all over the rollonfriday forums, drop me a line.

The odds against me are actually far less awful than I was expecting, but still not favourable. Fingers crossed – I’ll hear back on the 18th…

Doing research work at the National Archives; the field (British military assistance in Africa in the 70s & 80s) isn’t one I know much about, but the old sarcastic officer wit is extremely familiar. MO, SD. My dear good friends, I’ve studied both the scenes; The former formulates the ends , The other finds the means. […]

Tomorrow I have an assessment day with a London law firm. It’s the third and final hoop of assessment to jump through; although I applied to several firms, this is the only one with which I’ve got this far.

If I get the place, it guarantees me funding for two years of law school, two further years as a trainee at the firm, and, barring screwups, substantial likelihood of a subsequent job in one of the last remaining sectors where “job security” is a legitimate concept rather than a bitter joke. If I don’t, my future is in some doubt; no worse off than most of the rest of my generation, really, but rudderless and with personal debt that invites vice-like metaphors.

I’m already basically resigned to not getting it. To call the odds against me horrific is to powerfully understate the size of the mountain of corpses you need to scale for a training contract.

Today we got a letter addressed to “The Gentleman of the Household”, with the subtitle “GENTLEMEN – RESTART YOUR ENGINES”. It was from somewhere named “Nutritech”, but my guess was still Viagra. Close – it was “testosterone replacement therapy”, with a list of “symptoms of testosterone deficiency” vaguer than your average horoscope and even more slimily phrased.

I wish for days when this sort of scam was run by a chap in a shabby hat with a coatful of bottles marked SNAKE OIL. So much more entertaining :(